The subject matter disclosed herein relates to fasteners and, more particularly, to an interlocking retention strip for use in applications where weld bonding two pieces together are needed.
In the context of turbines used in the generation of electrical energy in a power plant, any time the turbine is not operational affects the profitability and effectiveness of the plant. According, reducing down time of turbines through component life extension is of great importance.
One cause of down time may come from having to make repairs to the turbine. For example, the turbine may include a turbine casing connected to a compressed air supply and including within the turbine casing a plurality of combustors and ducts surrounded by impingement sleeve for delivering hot gas to a turbine stage. Currently, the impingement sleeve is secured by welding two portions of the sleeve together utilizing a thin strip of plate (zipper strip) attached by fillet welds.
The zipper strip and areas surrounding it may be locations where cracks in the impingement sleeve begin. This may be due to the rigid joint between the two halves of the impingement sleeve at the location of the weld fluxuations in the sleeve shape during normal operation. Such cracks may lead to defects and, accordingly, repairs to the weld whenever they occur. Such repairs, however, are time consuming because, not only may the zipper strip need to be removed, the remnants of weld may have to be ground off of the impingement sleeve itself before a new zipper strip may be used. Further, the utilization of a zipper strip may not allow for the creation of a full penetration butt weld.